Bastardisms

"If all of mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
-John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1869

Since an extensive (5 minutes) google search found nothign on this, I am going to claim (rightfully so) that I was teh first person to state on the internet that the "Seizling Institute" in the film Adam Resurrected is the same as the bad guys hideout in Quantum of Solace.

A Squeaky Wheel is that person that thinks that by getting a supervisor invlolved, they will get their way.

The SW thinks that if they bitch loudly enough & long enough, then they will get their way. This is the same person that, when a manager does come over to listen to their self-important dribble but doesn't give them everything that they want, will threaten to a) write a letter to the president, b) sue the company, or c) both.

When confronting a SW, the best plan is to stick to your company's policies. Unfortunately, there are those placaters out there who will bend to the SW's desires. This only encourages the SW to think that they can repeat the same actions at other places & get similar results.

The other day I was watching one of those strange food shows where some guy goes to some exotic place and eats good that most Americans wouldn't. This show happened to be set in Saudi Arabia. During the course of the show, the host explained some of the things that the locals do for fun. Since it's an oil-rich nation, the gasoline costs less than $1 per gallon. Because of this, it is no problem for people to go riding over sand dunes in off-road vehicles.

As I watched this, at first I was outraged to see these people wasting gasoline when it costs so much here. I also felt a little bit hypocritical because I knew for so long that Americans had done the same things.

Then, as I thought about it more, my feelings changed. I realized that these people were using the natural resources of their country for the benefit of their people. If they had the resources to either produce or to purchase what they wanted, then I had no right to say that they could not use those resources in whatever way they saw fit.

Knowing this, I turned my thoughts to my own culture and realized that if Americans have the ability to produce and or buy food products to feed our people, then there is no problem whatsoever if I want to go to McDonald's to buy a hamburger and only eat half of it while there are people in this world that are starving.

Some people would say that there is a difference between gasoline and food, but I say that there is not. If the price of gasoline in America were to double tomorrow, then that would cause so many people here to be unable to afford to go to work. That would then cause them to be unable to purchase food.

If the United States is going to be held morally responsible for the feeding of other nations in the world because we have the ability to grow food, then OPEC nations should be held morally accountable for providing fuel assistance to countries as well.

The Large Hadron Collider at CERN was turned on this morning. Some people think that it might create a Black Hole that will swallow up the Earth. I say that's BS. Besides this LHC is old news to anyone who has read "Angels & Demons" by Dan Brown.

Besides, think about it this way. If if does create a black hole that swallows up the Earth, it will start right in the vicinity of France.

If you're still concerned about it, here is a link to the security cameras that they have at CERN.